seat.
He jumped up, too.
‘‘Perhaps you are exaggerating—if you were to take
proper measures perhaps—‘
‘He was terribly confused and did not seem able to
collect his scattered senses; the pocket-book was still in his
left hand.
‘‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ I said. ‘Dr. B— saw me last
week’ (I lugged him in again), ‘and my hash is quite
settled; pardon me-’ I took hold of the door-handle again.
I was on the point of opening the door and leaving my
grateful but confused medical friend to himself and his
shame, when my damnable cough got hold of me again.
‘My doctor insisted on my sitting down again to get my
breath. He now said something to his wife who, without
leaving her place, addressed a few words of gratitude and
courtesy to me. She seemed very shy over it, and her The Idiot
736 of 1149
sickly face flushed up with confusion. I remained, but with
the air of a man who knows he is intruding and is anxious
to get away. The doctor’s remorse at last seemed to need a
vent, I could see.
‘‘If I—’ he began, breaking off abruptly every other
moment, and starting another sentence. ‘I-I am so very
grateful to you, and I am so much to blame in your eyes, I
feel sure, I—you see—’ (he pointed to the room again) ‘at
this moment I am in such a position-’
‘‘Oh!’ I said, ‘there’s nothing to see; it’s quite a clear
case— you’ve lost your post and have come up to make
explanations and get another, if you can!’
‘‘How do you know that?’ he asked in amazement.
‘‘Oh, it was evident at the first glance,’ I said ironically,
but not intentionally so. ‘There are lots of people who
come up from the provinces full of hope, and run about
town, and have to live as best they can.’
‘He began to talk at once excitedly and with trembling
lips; he began complaining and telling me his story. He
interested me, I confess; I sat there nearly an hour. His
story was a very ordinary one. He had been a provincial
doctor; he had a civil appointment, and had no sooner
taken it up than intrigues began. Even his wife was
dragged into these. He was proud, and flew into a passion; The Idiot
737 of 1149
there was a change of local government which acted in
favour of his opponents; his position was undermined,
complaints were made against him; he lost his post and
came up to Petersburg with his last remaining money, in
order to appeal to higher authorities. Of course nobody
would listen to him for a long time; he would come and
tell his story one day and be refused promptly; another day
he would be fed on false promises; again he would be
treated harshly; then he would be told to sign some
documents; then he would sign the paper and hand it in,
and they would refuse to receive it, and tell him to file a
formal petition. In a word he had been driven about from
office to office for five months and had spent every
farthing he had; his wife’s last rags had just been pawned;
and meanwhile a child had been born to them and—and
today I have a final refusal to my petition, and I have
hardly a crumb of bread left—I have nothing left; my wife
has had a baby lately—and I-I—’
‘He sprang up from his chair and turned away. His wife
was crying in the corner; the child had begun to moan
again. I pulled out my note-book and began writing in it.
When I had finished and rose from my chair he was
standing before me with an expression of alarmed
curiosity. The Idiot
738 of 1149
‘‘I have jotted down your name,’ I told him, ‘and all
the rest of it—the place you served at, the district, the
date, and all. I have a friend, Bachmatoff, whose uncle is a
councillor of state and has to do with these matters, one
Peter Matveyevitch Bachmatoff.’
‘‘Peter Matveyevitch Bachmatoff!’ he cried, trembling
all over with excitement. ‘Why, nearly everything depends
on that very man!’
‘It is very curious, this story of the medical man, and
my visit, and the happy termination to which I
contributed by accident! Everything fitted in, as in a
novel. I told the poor people not to put much hope in
me, because I was but a poor schoolboy myself— (I am
not really, but I humiliated myself as much as possible in
order to make them less hopeful)—but that I would go at
once to the Vassili Ostroff and see my friend; and that as I
knew for certain that his uncle adored him, and was
absolutely devoted to him as the last hope and branch of
the family, perhaps the old man might do something to
oblige his nephew.
‘‘If only they would allow me to explain all to his
excellency! If I could but be permitted to tell my tale to
him!’ he cried, trembling with feverish agitation, and his
eyes flashing with excitement. I repeated once more that I The Idiot
739 of 1149
could not hold out much hope—that it would probably
end in smoke, and if I did not turn up next morning they
must make up their minds that there was no more to be
done in the matter.
‘They showed me out with bows and every kind of
respect; they seemed quite beside themselves. I shall never
forget the expression of their faces!
‘I took a droshky and drove over to the Vassili Ostroff
at once. For some years I had been at enmity with this
young Bachmatoff, at school. We considered him an
aristocrat; at all events I called him one. He used to dress
smartly, and always drove to school in a private trap. He
was a good companion, and was always merry and jolly,
sometimes even witty, though he was not very
intellectual, in spite of the fact that he was always top of
the class; I myself was never top in anything! All his
companions were very fond of him, excepting myself. He
had several times during those years come up to me and
tried to make friends; but I had always turned sulkily away
and refused to have anything to do with him. I had not
seen him for a whole year now; he was at the university.
When, at nine o’clock, or so, this evening, I arrived and
was shown up to him with great ceremony, he first
received me with astonishment, and not too affably, but The Idiot
740 of 1149
he soon cheered up, and suddenly gazed intently at me
and burst out laughing.
‘‘Why, what on earth can have possessed you to come
and see ME, Terentieff?’ he cried, with his usual pleasant,
sometimes audacious, but never offensive familiarity,
which I liked in reality, but for which I also detested him.
‘Why what’s the matter?’ he cried in alarm. ‘Are you ill?’
‘That confounded cough of mine had come on again; I
fell into a chair, and with difficulty recovered my breath.
‘It’s all right, it’s only consumption’ I said. ‘I have come to
you with a petition!’
‘He sat down in amazement, and I lost no time in
telling him the medical man’s history; and explained that
he, with the influence which he possessed over his uncle,
might do some good to the poor fellow.
‘‘I’ll do it—I’ll do it, of course!’ he said. ‘I shall attack
my uncle about it tomorrow morning, and I’m very glad
you told me the story. But how was it that you thought of
coming to me about it, Terentieff?’
‘‘So much depends upon your uncle,’ I said. ‘And
besides we have always been enemies, Bachmatoff; and as
you are a generous sort of fellow, I thought you would
not refuse my request because I was your enemy!’ I added
with irony. The Idiot
741 of 1149
‘‘Like Napoleon going to England, eh?’ cried he,
laughing. ‘I’ll do it though—of course, and at once, if I
can!’ he added, seeing that I rose seriously from my chair
at this point.
‘And sure enough the matter ended as satisfactorily as
possible. A month or so later my medical friend was
appointed to another post. He got his travelling expenses
paid, and something to help him to start life with once
more. I think Bachmatoff must have persuaded the doctor
to accept a loan from himself. I saw Bachmatoff two or
three times, about this period, the third time being when
he gave a farewell dinner to the doctor and his wife before
their departure, a champagne dinner.
‘Bachmatoff saw me home after the dinner and we
crossed the Nicolai bridge. We were both a little drunk.
He told me of his joy, the joyful feeling of having done a
good action; he said that it was all thanks to myself that he
could feel this satisfaction; and held forth about the
foolishness of the theory that individual charity is useless
‘I, too, was burning to have my say!
‘‘In Moscow,’ I said, ‘there was an old state counsellor,
a civil general, who, all his life, had been in the habit of
visiting the prisons and speaking to criminals. Every party
of convicts on its way to Siberia knew beforehand that on The Idiot
742 of 1149
the Vorobeef Hills the ‘old general’ would pay them a
visit. He did all he undertook seriously and devotedly. He
would walk down the rows of the unfortunate prisoners,
stop before each individual and ask after his needs—he
never sermonized them; he spoke kindly to them—he
gave them money; he brought them all sorts of necessaries
for the journey, and gave them devotional books,
choosing those who could read, under the firm conviction
that they would read to those who could not, as they went
along.
‘‘He scarcely ever talked about the particular crimes of
any of them, but listened if any volunteered information
on that point. All the convicts were equal for him, and he
made no distinction. He spoke to all as to brothers, and
every one of them looked upon him as a father. When he
observed among the exiles some poor woman with a
child, he would always come forward and fondle the little
one, and make it laugh. He continued these acts of mercy
up to his very death; and by that time all the criminals, all
over Russia and Siberia, knew him!
‘‘A man I knew who had been to Siberia and returned,
told me that he himself had been a witness of how the
very most hardened criminals remembered the old general,
though, in point of fact, he could never, of course, have The Idiot
743 of 1149
distributed more than a few pence to each member of a
party. Their recollection of him was not sentimental or
particularly devoted. Some wretch, for instance, who had
been a murderer—cutting the throat of a dozen fellow-
creatures, for instance; or stabbing six little children for his
own amusement (there have been such men!)—would
perhaps, without rhyme or reason, suddenly give a sigh
and say, ‘I wonder whether that old general is alive still!’
Although perhaps he had not thought of mentioning him
for a dozen years before! How can one say what seed of
good may have been dropped into his soul, never to die?’
‘I continued in that strain for a long while, pointing out
to Bachmatoff how impossible it is to follow up the effects
of any isolated good deed one may do, in all its influences
and subtle workings upon the heart and after-actions of
others.
‘‘And to think that you are to be cut off from life!’
remarked Bachmatoff, in a tone of reproach, as though he
would like to find someone to pitch into on my account.
‘We were leaning over the balustrade of the bridge,
looking into the Neva at this moment.
‘‘Do you know what has suddenly come into my
head?’ said I, suddenly—leaning further and further over
the rail. The Idiot
744 of 1149
‘‘Surely not to throw yourself into the river?’ cried
Bachmatoff in alarm. Perhaps he read my thought in my
face.
‘‘No, not yet. At present nothing but the following
consideration. You see I have some two or three months
left me to live—perhaps four; well, supposing that when I
have but a month or two more, I take a fancy for some
‘good deed’ that needs both trouble and time, like this
business of our doctor friend, for instance: why, I shall
have to give up the idea of it and take to something else—
some LITTLE good deed, MORE WITHIN MY
MEANS, eh? Isn’t that an amusing idea!’
‘Poor Bachmatoff was much impressed—painfully so.
He took me all the way home; not attempting to console
me, but behaving with the greatest delicacy. On taking
leave he pressed my hand warmly and asked permission to
come and see me. I replied that if he came to me as a
‘comforter,’ so to speak (for he would be in that capacity
whether he spoke to me in a soothing manner or only
kept silence, as I pointed out to him), he would but
remind me each time of my approaching death! He
shrugged his shoulders, but quite agreed with me; and we
parted better friends than I had expected. The Idiot
745 of 1149
‘But that evening and that night were sown the first
seeds of my ‘last conviction.’ I seized greedily on my new
idea; I thirstily drank in all its different aspects (I did not
sleep a wink that night!), and the deeper I went into it the
more my being seemed to merge itself in it, and the more
alarmed I became. A dreadful terror came over me at last,
and did not leave me all next day.
‘Sometimes, thinking over this, I became quite numb
with the terror of it; and I might well have deduced from
this fact, that my ‘last conviction’ was eating into my being
too fast and too seriously, and would undoubtedly come
to its climax before long. And for the climax I needed
greater determination than I yet possessed.
‘However, within three weeks my determination was
taken, owing to a very strange circumstance.
‘Here on my paper, I make a note of all the figures and
dates that come into my explanation. Of course, it is all
the same to me, but just now—and perhaps only at this
moment—I desire that all those who are to judge of my
action should see clearly out of how logical a sequence of
deductions has at length proceeded my ‘last conviction.’
‘I have said above that the determination needed by me
for the accomplishment of my final resolve, came to hand
not through any sequence of causes, but thanks to a The Idiot
